CAREER: The Emergence of New Indo-Aryan--Tense, Aspect and Modality

印度-雅利安语为我们提供了三千多年的丰富而连续的历史语言记录。但是大量的记录，特别是中印度-雅利安和早期新印度-雅利安时期的记录，仍然没有进行语言学上的探索。该项目将通过对从中印度-雅利安晚期到新印度-雅利安时期（公元500 - 1500年）的语言过渡的性质进行调查来填补这一空白。Ashwini Deo博士的研究将特别侧重于研究新印度-雅利安语言中时态、体和情态系统的演变。这项研究建立在两个分项目之上。第一个子项目的目的是收集一组在公元500年至1500年之间创建的历时文本，从而创建一个电子访问和搜索的语料库。第二个子项目涉及仔细研究印度-雅利安语中部和南部亚群中文献不足的成员的当代语言状况，以寻找有关中印度-雅利安语系统结构的线索。这两个在方法上不同但在主题上统一的子项目协同进行，将产生一幅比单独进行更高分辨率的印度-雅利安历史状况的画面。此外，这些数据将是至关重要的，以回答更广泛的理论问题的语义变化的系统性，变化的机制，在自然语言中的时/体系统的演变路径。该项目的目的是，从一开始，创建一个平台，使处理文本和字段数据（元数据），通过一个专门的网站，更广泛的研究社区访问。将向公众提供一个相当大的电子文本语料库以及一个关于中印度和新印度-雅利安材料的综合书目数据库。此外，将为所做的实地工作保留完整的文件材料档案。因此，该项目产生的知识基础设施可以更广泛地用于未来对中印度雅利安人和新印度雅利安人的研究。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

The Indo-Aryan languages provide us with a rich and continuous historical linguistic record for over three thousand years. But a large amount of this record, especially for the Middle Indo-Aryan and Early New Indo-Aryan period, remains unexplored linguistically. This project will contribute to filling this gap by undertaking an investigation of the nature of the linguistic transition from the Late Middle Indo-Aryan period to the New Indo-Aryan period (500 CE--1500CE). Dr. Ashwini Deo's research will focus specifically on studying the evolution of tense, aspect, and modality systems in the New Indo-Aryan languages. This research builds on two subprojects. The first subproject aims to digitize a set of diachronic texts created between 500CE and 1500CE, thus creating an electronically accessible and searchable corpus for the period of interest. The second subproject involves taking a closer look at the contemporary linguistic situation for under-documented members of the Central and Southern subgroups of Indo-Aryan for clues about the structure of the parent Middle Indo-Aryan system. Undertaken in concert, these two methodologically distinct, but thematically unified subprojects will yield a picture of the Indo-Aryan historical situation of much higher resolution than either of them undertaken in isolation. Further, these data will be crucial to answering broader theoretical questions about the systematic nature of semantic change, the mechanisms of change, and paths of evolution in tense/aspect systems in natural languages.The project aims, from the very outset, to create a platform for making the processed textual and field data (metadata) accessible to the broader research community via a dedicated website. A sizeable corpus of electronic texts as well as a comprehensive bibliographic database of material on Middle and New Indo-Aryan will be made publicly available. Further, a complete archive of documented materials will be maintained for the fieldwork done. The intellectual infrastructure generated by the project can be thus employed more generally for future research on Middle and New Indo-Aryan.This award is co-funded by NSF's International Science and Engineering office.